Can progressives win outside of cities? A Maine House race offers a key test.

As political drama goes in Maine, this has been a banner year.

Maine’s Senate race has been in the spotlight’s glare for months, with recent polls showing five-term GOP Sen. Susan Collins running a few points behind Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. Mr. Jackson, a former state senator, was hastily drafted in July after Graham Platner, the party’s original, controversy-dogged nominee, dropped out.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that a competitive open race for one of Maine’s two U.S. House seats has largely flown under the radar.

Jared Golden, a former Marine and moderate Democrat who has represented Maine’s 2nd Congressional District since 2019, opted not to run for reelection after facing criticism from his party’s base for siding with Republicans on some high-profile votes. Announcing his decision last year, Mr. Golden lamented a decline in political civility and a rise in “plain nastiness,” including among political leaders.

The race to replace him is presenting voters with a much sharper ideological contrast: State Auditor Matt Dunlap, a progressive Democrat, is running against former GOP Gov. Paul LePage, who famously once joked that he “was Donald Trump before Donald Trump was popular.”

Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to flip control of the House. Given the sheer number of pick-up opportunities they’re facing, they might not even need to hold onto this swing seat.

But the campaign unfolding in this mostly rural district, the largest east of the Mississippi River, offers a key test of the progressive wing’s claim that left-wing candidates can, in fact, appeal to voters outside of urban liberal enclaves. Mr. Dunlap, who was not the Democratic establishment’s preferred candidate, hopes to prove he can win independent voters without being a moderate Blue Dog Democrat like Mr. Golden – even in a district that Donald Trump carried by nine points in 2024.

Mr. Dunlap is running on “a populist agenda that meets voters where they are,” says Mark Longabaugh, an ad-maker for Mr. Dunlap who worked for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on his campaigns for president. “He wants to fight for working people on wages and costs.”

Mr. Dunlap supports expanding government-provided healthcare and childcare, and calls for higher taxes on the wealthy to help pay for these and other services. He opposes U.S. military aid to Israel, though he doesn’t use the term “genocide” to describe the conflict in Gaza, as many progressives do.

There are parallels with Michigan, where establishment Democrats failed to derail Abdul El-Sayed’s nomination for a Senate seat in a battleground state. Mr. Sanders and other progressives have rallied behind Mr. El-Sayed, making him a test case for their brand of politics. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who recently transferred $1 million to Mr. El-Sayed’s campaign, said a victory in Michigan would “break open the entire political calculus” by showing that progressives can win “anywhere.”

That’s a view that Mr. Dunlap broadly shares. “I think people sometimes talk about the 2nd District as like some sort of politically hostile wilderness. And really these are my neighbors, these are my friends,” he says in an interview.

He argues that rural Mainers facing economic stress under the Trump administration actually want bolder government policies, such as universal healthcare. “It’s only [seen as] progressive because we’ve never done it before,” he says.

“People say, ‘Well, how do you win in a district that voted for Trump three times?’” he continues. “I say they didn’t vote for Trump three times because they were happy. They’re very unhappy. And that’s why they vote that way.”

A “bureaucratic nerd” who favors gun rights

During campaign stops, Mr. Dunlap leans into his record in Maine’s state government, from being elected as a legislator to serving 14 years as secretary of state and more recently as state auditor, both appointed positions. He calls himself a “bureaucratic nerd” who enjoys immersing himself in policy details.

As secretary of state, he sued the Trump administration after serving on a short-lived commission to investigate Mr. Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2016 election. Mr. Dunlap said the commission was disbanded because it failed to turn up evidence, so he sued to make its findings public.

He is also quick to point out a few ways in which he breaks from progressive orthodoxy. “I’m a Democrat; I always voted for the Democratic budgets and things like that. But I’m a sportsman, I have guns, and I hunt. And that’s not common among Democrats anymore.”

Mr. Dunlap opposes assault rifle bans, which he argues have not been proven to reduce gun violence. Asked if he would cast a deciding vote against a Democrat-authored ban, he said he would. (Mr. Golden, also a gun rights advocate, came out in favor of a ban after a mass shooting in Lewiston in 2023.)

Supporters say this issue has helped make Mr. Dunlap competitive in a district where hunting and fishing are a way of life. “You can be progressive in terms of saying, ‘I think we ought to bring down costs, Canadian tariffs are killing us,’ and be a lifelong outdoorsman,” says Mr. Longabaugh, who cut an ad showing this side of his candidate.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Dunlap salts his political pitch with folksy phrasing. Recalling a debate exchange about Mr. LePage’s wintering in Florida, Mr. Dunlap compared his opponent to roadkill. “He was like a raccoon that gets hit by a car,” Mr. Dunlap recounted to voters, cracking a smile. “He wasn’t quite sure how to respond.”

Hammering Mr. LePage for being a snowbird (the former governor spends the winter in Florida but denies being a resident there) carries weight in a year when many Mainers are fretting about the soaring cost of home heating oil. Around half of Maine’s households rely on heating oil, the highest share of any state. On Oct. 21, the Trump administration said it would release heating oil from a national reserve, though deliveries won’t start until after the midterms.

Mr. LePage, a colorful and outspoken two-term governor, was originally viewed as the favorite in the race. But an independent poll taken in September found the two candidates statistically tied. In recent weeks, as Democrats ride a national wave of dissatisfaction with the Trump presidency, some poll watchers have moved the race into a more competitive bracket.

As governor, Mr. LePage courted controversy with barbed and sometimes profane rebukes of liberals, while winning plaudits for tax cuts and controlling public spending. A French speaker who is proud of his Acadian roots, Mr. LePage appears to have softened his rhetoric in this campaign. But he remains a divisive figure in Maine politics – a candidate with sky-high name recognition but high unfavorables as well, who has never won an outright majority in statewide elections.

Mr. LePage vetoed Democratic bills to expand Medicaid in Maine. In the October debate, he charged Mr. Dunlap with advocating “socialized medicine” that was unaffordable. He also went after Mr. Dunlap over fraud in state Medicaid spending and accused him of not stopping it; Mr. Dunlap said the state auditor’s office wasn’t tasked to do this. The two clashed over tariffs on Canada, immigration enforcement, and the war with Iran.

“If you want somebody that’s going to be a spender, he’s your guy,” Mr. LePage told the audience. “If you want somebody that’s going to lower costs, go after fraud, I’m your guy.”

Talking to voters

Speaking to voters last week at a hotel in Presque Isle, a town of 9,000 people near the Canadian border, Mr. Dunlap is asked whether a Democratic Congress would impeach Mr. Trump. “I’m a process guy,” he demurs. “I don’t want to put a conclusion in front of anything.”

A woman in a fleece jacket stands up with a more proximate concern: the apparent friction between Mr. Dunlap and Mr. Golden, the outgoing congressman, who has notably not endorsed him. “I haven’t asked, he hasn’t offered,” Mr. Dunlap says. Mr. Golden told Spectrum News that Mr. Dunlap “comes across as someone scared of losing,” who is looking for someone to blame if he does.

In the corner of a brewery and outfitters’ lodge near Mount Katahdin, at the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, Michael Scrooc sits at a table with his wife. On the table is a printout of topics with highlighted questions, and he peppers Mr. Dunlap, who’s come to speak to voters, about electoral integrity, fiscal deficits, and why Congress hasn’t banned stock trading by its members. Their exchanges are cordial, and Mr. Scrooc, a dietary supervisor at a hospital in Millinocket, seems satisfied with what he hears.

Afterward, he describes himself as a fiscal conservative and a social moderate who voted for Mr. Trump. He’s still undecided between Mr. Dunlap and Mr. LePage. Either way, he says, his wish is for politicians to “get back to doing what’s right. There has to be more common ground.”